Girls basketball: Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland’s 3s, box-and-one avenge lopsided loss to Heyworth

FLANAGAN – Ten days earlier, the Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland girls basketball co-op suffered a 19-point loss at the hands of Heyworth to end the Falcons’ brief run in the McLean County/Heart of Illinois Conference Tournament.

That was 10 days ago.

On Thursday, FCW used timely 3-point shooting and a box-and-one defense on Heyworth standout guard Kyra Denning at the Nest to avenge that defeat, 37-34. Falcons freshman Emma Palaschak hit what proved to be the game-winning 3 with 3:23 remaining, and junior Ella Derossett blocked the Hornets’ desperation buzzer-beater in the closing seconds to send the hosts to the regular-season HOIC win.

“It feels really good to hear the team, and when my coach stands up and stomps for me, it gets me really excited,” Palaschak said. “It’s good to know your team’s excited for you and you’re helping keep them in the game, and everyone else was, too.

“I feel like we came back as a different team [than the one that lost 46-27 to Heyworth on Jan. 15], and it felt really nice to beat them after that big loss.”

Derossett added nine points, including a pair of 3-pointers, and nine rebounds for the Falcons, whose 3s from her and Palaschak came at all the right times to first fight back from an early 7-0 deficit and take a 21-15 lead into halftime, then to bring FCW (5-15, 1-6 HOIC) back again when the Hornets (6-17, 1-6) had recaptured the advantage late in the third quarter.

“We hadn’t seen that yet,” Heyworth coach Ryan Lawler said of the box-and-one defense centered on Denning. “And I think that flustered us at the start. No one’s ever done that to us, and I think we were like, ‘What do we do?’ But we adjusted, but credit to them. They hit 3s.

“They hit some 3s in our face; we didn’t close out on some. Credit to them. I knew they’d be ready to go after getting 20-pointed by us.”

Kora Edens added five points and as many rebounds, center Grace Longmire combined four points – including a critical putback with 2:04 remaining – with a dozen rebounds, and Aubry Edens and Kaylee Delheimer took turns being the “one” face-on defender in the box-and-one that limited Denning to a 13-point, six-rebound night after she scored 29 on the Falcons during the tournament.

“I told them, ‘We’re not going to stop [Denning] every time, because she’s a great player,” FCW coach Danielle Pollitt said. “But we slowed her down. If she had another 29 points tonight, the end of tonight’s game would have been a lot different. [Delheimer and Aubry Edens] did a nice job.”

Ava Riddle (seven points, 10 rebounds) and Danielle Strunk (five points, four assists, three steals) were also leaders for Heyworth, which was narrowly outrebounded 37-35 by Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland but won the turnovers forced battle 17-9.

The Hornets led by seven points (7-0) in the opening quarter and by one (28-27) early in the fourth before a Derossett bucket assisted by Kora Edens and Palaschak’s game-winning 3-pointer gave FCW a 33-30 advantage. Longmire’s putback, one free throw apiece from Aubry Edens and Kora Edens in the closing seconds and Derossett’s game-ending blocked shot closed the deal and gave the Falcons their first Heart of Illinois win since Jan. 13, 2022.

“I think the first time out with them, we didn’t show up for that game, and I’m not taking anything away from Heyworth,” Pollitt said. “But we did not show up, we did not compete, and that was a hard night for me to go home after. But tonight, we came out, the team competed.

“We’ve struggled all season finding people to step up when they need to ... but we had some girls step up tonight.”